Rani Hotel & Spa Kuta

... can sit on a beach in Bali and listen to an Indonesian say hello and how are you and the basics in fluent Irish - his accent wasn&#8217;t half bad either! However the evening was interrupted somewhat by Miriam when after a stroll to the toilets came running back to the beach, fortunately rescuing me from the chore of being on my own with a very exciting surprise she said. <br> I grabbed my bag and we rushed back in the direction of the road. I saw them from across the street ...

... growth and creatures; after all, the tour agencies pay the island fisherman (in an ironic twist of fate) to NOT fish.<br><br>Since I was a little girl, I&#8217;ve always loved sea turtles and was absolutely ecstatic when we finally anchored near the sea ridge off the coast of Gili Meno. We put on our snorkel gear sucking in through our noses to suction the masks to our faces, the flippers reducing us to a backwards, penguin walk. We jump off the side of the boat and into the ...

Cheap flights being cheap flights means there is always a reason for the deal of the century. Our flight to Bali&#8217;s drawback was that we where arriving in Kuta around midnight. At first this didn&#8217;t seem a problem but as events unfolded we were soon to get frustrated by Bali. <br><br>Firstly our superb lack of preparation had left us un aware that on arrival at the airport we where required to pay 25 US dollars per person for Visas ...

... keep a budget book and write down everything I spend, no matter how small it is. I also convert this into whatever currency I am dealing with. I'm currently over budget, and therefore my budget book stood at -1,335,600 Rupiah!! I felt like I was going broke!! Well, I kind of was because of Singapore, but it was still worth it. Anyway, we went to an information booth, even though it looked like a security booth. We wanted to know where the nearest cheapest accommodation was ...

... my mount for the day. The horses here are very well kept and most as mixed with Indonesian horses and Thoroughbreds from different nations. After Mt Bromis I I was expecting very small horses and was pleasantly surprised by the nice quality of the horses. I was very impressed when they put a beginner rider on a stallion who was so well behaved that I had a hard time believing he as a stallion. Each rider gets an individual guide so your able to ride at your own comfort level ...

... arrived and got to ride elephants, on the ride Nick drooped his sprite bottle onto the ground so the guide told the elephant to pick it up. The elephant not taking orders to well took this as stomp on it, and completely smashed the bottle. On our ride it also started pouring rain(makes sense in a rain forest) and continued to pour monsoon status as we started our journey home..... It was tough enough driving in practically a river but somewhere ...

... 50K Rp note while handing over the T shirt and the change, but I don't know how 'cos I was being very careful, or so I thought ! Here's another tip for when in Kuta, if caught in a heavy tropical thunderstorm, the Discovery Shopping Mall is a great place to shelter, but take extra care in and out on the imposing marble steps, they are lethal when wet! By now it was mid evening so I bought several large bottles of, you guessed it, Bintang (15K Rp each) from the ...

... all. Seems most of the people inside felt the same way, but this was the quickest way to go to Gili, at IDR 600,000. Similar price will bring you to Gili via Airplane as well, but the plane will have to land in Lombok Island, and from there you will have to take another 1 hour shuttle bus to Bangsal Port Lombok and take a local fiberglass boat in 25mins that will carry you to Gili. Bye Bali &amp; welcome Gili!

... people of Angkor had kept evolving, these are what they would have looked like. We also took in a local dance. We booked the fire one, expecting something spectacular. The first bit told of a huge old Hindu story with candles !!! The girls in it, danced in a South East Asian way, but dressed in a style that we had seen in a Hindu temple in Amritsar. The last dance actually did involve fire. A guy rode a fake ...

... behind some of the temples buildings. Got to see some holy cats and another huge spider which Omang said was harmless. Our next stop was Pacung - the rice plantations and we were to have lunch here and take in the views of teh rice fields and Mt Batukaru. The views were pretty amazing in between the rain showers and it is truly unbelievable the amount of work that goes into maintaining the plantations. What I really loved about the trip was the driving ...